Day 160: Dollars Are Few...

...and far between, but it was definitely another day.

First, at 9 AM the realtor called to say someone wanted to see the house. After a bit of back and forth (they wanted 11 AM, we wanted 6 PM--!) we compromised at 2 PM. Himself got the groceries - hey, when it's grocery day, it's grocery day, and neither rain nor sleet nor prospective buyers will stay the pantry-supplier from making his appointed rounds - while I did the housework blitz. Basically it's clean and fairly neat, but instead of a day's notice (or even two) it was a couple of hours.

They turned up - ten minutes early, in fact - and did pretty much what I expected. Once around the yard, once thru the house, fifteen minutes, gone. *sigh* I don't think I want to talk about it.

On the plus side, the house looks pretty good, even for a lick and a promise, so I can take it easy tomorrow and try to catch up on the stuff I didn't have time to do today. That's in terms of computer projects, o'course.

I've been tinkering with Ancestry again, and now going a bit farther afield instead of searching thru 'only' the census records. The UK has more of their records online than the US does - tho to be fair, there aren't as many of them, at least of the more recent vintage. (I say 'recent,' because of course if we went back to pre-Norman invasion, there'd be a lot of years to cover, tho I daresay the country wasn't as populated.) Most of my ancestors (talking four to five generations back) lived in New England / northern NY and just over the St Lawrence (in a couple cases) in Canada, so when I need to go to a site in person at least the area's not too big and it's fairly localized. Problem is, I'm not THERE.

I've been trying to draw up a list of things I need to look for when next I get to the US. I can use the 'net to find out where archived newspapers are stored (generally on microfilm, and in libraries, tho a few of the papers still publishing maintain their own 'morgues'), but the list for 'Look Up THIS Next Time I'm In The Vicinity' is growing ever longer.

Meanwhile, I made a decision I've been procrastinating about for some time. (Weeks, probably.) I took on two of the British SP teams way-back-when, because the people who'd set them up originally no longer kept up with them, for whatever reason(s). And I am in the same situation.

I haven't lost interest, really, but as priorities go I seem to continually bump them down the list, putting them in the 'This can wait' category. That would be fine if they were bumped once a week or so, but I find myself bumping them every day, to the extent that I haven't posted on the message boards and aren't keeping up with the team members who participate. The time has come.

I guess that about does it. I hope tomorrow is a nice quiet day - I'll do some kind of exercise early on (if the back, knee, foot cooperate) (Deo volente) then spend the rest of the time doing research. I guess that's where my real passion lies: playing detective, fact-finding, searching out old records and trying to decipher them, lol... If I got the genealogy certification, I could even maybe make some money at it, eh? Which would seem to bring this blog back full circle.

Goodnight, Sparklers, wherever you are!